CAREER: Network modulation of cortical neuron computation

职业：皮质神经元计算的网络调制

• 批准号: 1350990
• 负责人: Daniel Butts
• 金额: $ 51.38万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2021-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1350990&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Network; modulation; cortical; neuron

The function of sensory neurons is typically defined by the relationship between sensory stimuli and their responses; however, in the cortex of awake animals, sensory responses account for only a fraction of neural activity. While activity not driven by the stimulus is often considered "noise" and neglected in experiments, such ongoing cortical activity has been linked to a number of processes related to cognition, and can be influenced by attention, tasks, and perception itself. It remains unclear how to relate such ongoing cortical activity to the processing of sensory stimuli, and more generally why it appears to play such a prominent role in sensory neuron function. The goal of this project is to establish a new framework for understanding stimulus processing in the context of ongoing cortical activity, and thereby derive a much richer understanding of sensory neuron function. This work will leverage the wealth of information about activity within the cortical network that is now typically available from multi-electrode recordings, using experiments performed by collaborating laboratories in the awake visual cortex using tailored visual stimuli. The first aim is to develop new statistical approaches for identifying relevant modulatory signals detectable from these multi-electrode recordings, and perform detailed characterizations of stimulus processing in the context of these signals. The second aim is to study specific contexts where cortical activity is shaped by known network inputs, such as during saccadic eye movements, in order to directly link the modulation of stimulus processing to larger descriptions of sensory neuron function.This work will provide potentially transformative insights into the relationship between sensory processing and cognitive function. The educational component of this proposal will integrate computational and quantitative approaches into general neuroscience coursework, and involve students at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels, in computational analyses of complex neurophysiological data.

感觉神经元的功能通常由感觉刺激和它们的反应之间的关系来定义;然而，在清醒动物的皮层中，感觉反应只占神经活动的一小部分。虽然非刺激驱动的活动通常被认为是“噪音”并在实验中被忽视，但这种持续的皮质活动与许多与认知相关的过程有关，并且可能受到注意力、任务和感知本身的影响。目前尚不清楚如何将这种持续的皮层活动与感觉刺激的处理联系起来，以及更普遍地说，为什么它似乎在感觉神经元功能中发挥如此重要的作用。该项目的目标是建立一个新的框架，以了解刺激处理的背景下正在进行的皮层活动，从而获得更丰富的理解感觉神经元的功能。这项工作将利用关于皮质网络内活动的丰富信息，这些信息现在通常可以从多电极记录中获得，使用合作实验室在清醒的视觉皮质中使用定制的视觉刺激进行实验。第一个目标是开发新的统计方法，用于识别从这些多电极记录中可检测到的相关调制信号，并在这些信号的背景下对刺激处理进行详细表征。第二个目标是研究特定的情况下，大脑皮层的活动是由已知的网络输入，如在扫视眼球运动，以直接链接到更大的描述的感觉神经元功能的刺激处理的调制，这项工作将提供潜在的变革性见解之间的关系感觉处理和认知功能。该建议的教育部分将把计算和定量方法整合到一般神经科学课程中，并让研究生、本科生和高中生参与复杂神经生理数据的计算分析。